The Selection of Significant Detail - Summary of Styles:

“The Selection of Significant Detail” is also the aspect of style. Given a particular scene on event what do we make explicit about it and what do we leave ‘understood’? There is a scene in which selection forms of basis of any text. The most cleared way to see the detail is when we describe what is before our eyes. How would you describe the situation or environment you are in matters? In theory, you could go on mentioning details for ever but you’ll not mention everything that you won’t need to. The trick you can leave to the readers’ experience is to make the details that you do choose ‘call up’ the whole situation. This is what is meant by their being significant.

In the boxing commentary, the communicator doesn’t have time to mention many details so: s/he selects the key items in order to create an impression of the whole scene. In the radio commentary, the commentary doesn’t mention every blow but picks out samples. A specimen number of key incidents stand in for the whole. The commentator requires judgment and knowledge that should be appreciated.

The terms such as:

(i) Right over the top: This allows the commentator to be concise. The technique of using a part to stand for the whole applies details as well as overall strategy.

(ii) It [eternity] is about me in the sunshine: The commentator selects some parts of the whole but not others. Sometimes selection can be used as a way of producing an ‘in’ style that can’t be understood by outsider. It is a kind of selection with different purpose that forms the basis of riddles. Sometime we mention not a part but a specific type of something. Being able to select is a key skill for the friction writer.

Selection is a course related to ideological presupposition about the topic and the reader and listener, and their relation to the writer or speaker.